Archive for the ‘Thankfulness’ Tag

As I wrote yesterday, I intend to chronicle my daily smiles, but let’s not confuse that with thanksgiving. My focus is joie de vivre for me and those who share life with me, while thanksgiving, by contrast, is often seen as moral obligation. So it is driven by duty rather than delight, aimed at someone else’s benefit rather than my own (except to exercise my virtue). As a default response, giving thanks will actually weaken relationships rather than enhance them if it pulls us from gracious into legalistic connections.

At a human level, when I share my joy with the one who gifts me, she is drawn into my life and experience. She connects with me and delights in my joy. The focus is on a shared enjoyment of the gift rather than a shared esteem of the giver and her virtue. When I approach thanks as duty, it distances me from the generous one and devalues her generosity down to a trade. Then my gratitude becomes her due, even though paying it doesn’t reduce my debt for her favors. And with big favors, she becomes the benefactor, and I turn into the charity case. Her virtue and strength is showcased, but only my lack and dependence. Mutuality devolves into hierarchy.

Even when God is the munificent one, I think it far better to share with Him my joy and invite Him into it rather than try to pay Him with gratitude, as though His presents come with price tags. Of course, I can be self-absorbed, focused only on the gift and ignoring the one who gave it, a childish mistake (although God is not offended or hurt by this as we are). The real misfortune in such a response is not the unfairness of it, but the loneliness that results. We were created for community, for connection, for sharing our hearts, so isolating our attention on the gift desiccates our relationships. The greatest good and core purpose of giving and receiving is to draw us into close communion through mutual care.

For a perfect illustration of the joy of shared celebration, see Susan’s comment.

As Christian fads go, “30 days of thanks” seems to have some potential for good. If you’ve missed it, it’s the practice of giving thanks for something each day of November (often posted on social media). Hopefully it makes us all happier. Gratitude is seen in church as well as in our society at large as a foundation stone of mental health. On a TED talk last week the positive psychology guru Shawn Achor listed thanksgiving as his first choice to improve life’s outlook: find 3 things daily for which to be grateful. On the surface, I think this is a good idea. On the surface. But like most things, the real story is under the surface.

My first question is about motivation, which can sour so many good practices. I remember as a child being ordered to write thank-you notes for gifts I hated. It did not improve my life’s outlook! Legislating gratitude spoils it. But following cultural norms, my parents shamed my “ungrateful attitude” as a child… and it seemed to fix my attitude, but it damaged my spirit. In compliance, I trained myself to “feel” grateful, not as a natural response of delight, but as a way to avoid shame. On the surface, it’s hard to tell the difference, but natural gratitude gives life and forced gratitude suffocates life and relationships. Based on how I react to ungrateful people, I’d say I need more of the natural kind. When I choose thanksgiving as a “discipline,” my spiritual growth may only be in pride or resentment.

But even if my motivation is healthy, I can still misuse thankfulness. Both pop psychology and pop Christianity suppose we can fix hard events and feelings with positive thinking (often labeled “faith”). On the surface, that might be a good idea. On the surface. That is to say, if the bad feelings are superficial, then I can easily “shake it off” with some uplifting thoughts. But for anything deeper, positive thinking will only mask the problem, like taking ibuprofen for a ruptured appendix. The real solution for difficult feelings is to recognize and accept them in a spirit of compassion, try to understand them and find a means to truly support the needs that my soul is expressing. Using thankfulness to resolve significant pain just minimizes and belittles our true feelings and fosters false lives and relationships.

If you are lonely, for instance, not just this particular evening, but in life generally, you cannot rectify it by reminding yourself of all the people who love you and so talk yourself into being okay. If you are hurt by rejection, by loss, by trauma, you cannot find healing by “counter-balancing” it with happy thoughts or smothering it with praise music. Massages are nice, but they don’t cure ear infections. Paul tells us in Romans to “weep with those who weep,” not “cheer up those who weep.” Some of us need to learn to weep for ourselves in compassion. I never use thanksgiving to shout down my feelings. Joy is most truly experienced when I genuinely embrace my sorrows. So any takers for “30 days of pain”?